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telecom

Consumers Craving More Wireless Data Control

The wireless industry is ready for a shakeup, and if it were up to consumers, it would come in the form of revamped data plans.

In a national survey of more than 2,000 wireless
customers, Matrixx Software found that 58% of mobile users (including those who currently had unlimited mobile plans) would change their mobile service today if they had more choice and control over
how they used their data.

“People want to understand the value of what they’re paying for,” Jennifer Kyriakakis, founder and vice president of marketing at
Matrixx, tells Marketing Daily. “This has been across communications in general. Cable customers [have been saying] they only want to pay for the channels they want to watch.”

In fact, nearly half of those surveyed said they would pay up to 10% more for unlimited access — without throttled speeds or hidden costs — to the apps they used most, such as Netflix,
Spotify or Facebook. A full quarter of consumers said they would prefer a plan that was structured around the apps they use most.

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“Rather than all you can eat, [consumers would
prefer] what you will pay for, such as unlimited social apps or apps that I want to use,” Kyriakakis says. “People want to be able to make a choice.”

Making such
choice available would be a “massive disruption” of the current market, but one that was foreseeable as more consumers connect more devices to accounts, and carriers become more concerned
with keeping current customers happy than trying to woo subscribers from competitors, Kyriakakis says.

“We’ve seen challenger brands [in other markets] come up
and take market share really quickly,” she says. “The carriers are not going to be able to play the replacement game forever. It’s unsustainable.”